Who’s Who Of Doctor Who

I am probably one of the few people on the intarweb who can truthfully say that she has watched EVERY series of Doctor Who (until 2005), when it was originally transmitted. Quite impressive huh? Obviously the bitter side to that boast is the fact that it proves how OLD I am, but hey, I’m always exploiting the whole “experienced older woman” thing for all it’s worth, and it generally works wonders, so who cares?

Since I am in such an enviable position, I have decided to give you my take on each Doctor in turn. Some I liked, some I didn’t. Some I fancied, some made me want to be sick. Whatever else it will be a fun post BUT, much as I’d like to give lots of nerdy/geeky young men hard-ons… It won’t be chock full of obscure “facts” about the Doctor. Mostly because I can’t remember shit like that and partly because I find it boring. If you’d like facts, Wikipedia has covered Doctor Who to a degree that is almost frightening.

So here we go then… My take on the ten incarnations of Doctor Who, as I grew up with them.

First Doctor, played by William Hartnell (1963–1966): A scary old man, with straggly white hair, who shouted at his assistant. I was between the ages of five and eight (inclusive) during this period and William Hartnell made me hide behind the sofa FAR MORE than any of the monsters he encountered. His travelling companion was a fifteen year old relative named Susan and looking back, she probably had to wipe his arse and mash up his dinners and stuff, between adventures. NOT my favourite Doctor but he gets a prize for being the First One. He also gets a prize for managing to be visible, even on our blurry old black and white TV.

Second Doctor, played by Patrick Troughton (1966–1969): I was thrilled when Doctor Who regenerated into THIS lovely man. Patrick Troughton was a funny and friendly Doctor, who played the recorder (like I did at the time) and only frowned when he was thinking, or shouting at Daleks. He was also black and white but I think we had a better TV by then. I liked his clothes and he had a dark “Beatles” haircut that looked cool. I was only eleven when he stopped being Doctor Who but I’m pretty sure I found him sexy. What? Country girls get a lot of fresh air and live close to nature! Anyway, he is one of my absolute favourite Doctors.

Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee (1970–1974): Oh dear, NOT such a good Doctor. With his frilly shirt and white, curly hair, Jon Pertwee played the first “camp” Doctor Who but sadly he was as bossy as William Hartnell and rather too fond of himself for my liking. Plus, I was between the ages of twelve and sixteen and found MOST things “Pathetic!” at the time. I expect I wanted Marc Bolan to be Doctor Who. Jon Pertwee’s Doctor liked a man in uniform and seemed to be in love with human soldier Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. I think they hung out in the bushes behind the Tardis, even though INSIDE the Tardis he had a young female “companion” in hot pants. Hmmm. At least he was in colour.

Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker (1974–1981): OK, NOW we are talking! This is the REAL Doctor Who, folks! King of the crocodile smile, wearer of the 20ft long scarf, he travelled through time and space, handing out Jelly Babies and mocking the various blobs, tin cans and humanoids that he battled with on a weekly basis. From barely legal to the age of twenty one, I WANTED him badly. But the old dog was actually banging his assistant in “real life”! He even married her for a while! Tom Baker took the Doctor that Patrick Troughton had so lovingly created, forgot the whole Jon Pertwee era, and built on the idea of a quirky, naughty Doctor, with a slight madness in his eyes… Only he did it with the throttle of the Tardis in one hand and his assistant’s ass in the other. God, I loved him.

Fifth Doctor, played by Peter Davison (1981–1984): Meh. Too young, too boring, too clean-cut and too weedy. I had two little babies in this era and I’d have loved some escapism, but the bland Doctor Who that Davison created wasn’t doing it for me. I think I was still hankering after Tom though. The only good news is that by now my TV had a REMOTE CONTROL! I still watched Doctor Who but I usually sat reading the Betterware catalog (or something) at the same time. My early 20s… Not sure I made the best use of them.

Sixth Doctor, played by Colin Baker (1984–1986): In an attempt to recover Doctor Who from the blandness that was Peter Davison’s Doctor, the BBC decided to launch Colin Baker (no relation to Tom) on the nation. He had a porky little face, blonde curly hair and clothes that were almost “drag”. He looked like the love-child of Miss Piggy and a circus clown. I’ve tried to remember more about him, really I have but I had two toddlers, no money and a distaste for the desperately crappy image of Doctor Who, which was now becoming a joke. On the bright side, I now had a VIDEO RECORDER!

Seventh Doctor, played by Sylvester McCoy (1987–1989, 1996): The BBC wanted to kill Doctor Who off and this was the stupid twat they decided to do it with. If you doubt me, observe that Bonnie Langford was his assistant. Surely the Public would let them forget Doctor Who now that this NIGHTMARE had come to pass? Dark days. No new technological developments on my TV either.

Eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann (1996): BACK BY PUBLIC DEMAND! A brief but sexy return of Doctor Who, played by Paul McGann. At last we saw a Doctor kissing his assistant! Yay! At thirty eight I had two grown up sons, who liked Doctor Who and a newborn baby son, who liked milk. I’d have dragged Paul McGann naked into the TARDIS anytime. The plot wasn’t bad either. An all too short lived blast of Who but it kept the faith alive until… (Oh and we now had SATELLITE TV!) …

Ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston (2005): A leather-clad Doctor, who could smile like the menacing Tom Baker and seduce his assistant, her mother and some American bloke he bumped into… Whilst realistically saving the World. The Doctor was BACK and as a housewife of forty-seven, I heartily approved of a fit, slightly insane but very passionate Doctor Who. The size of Ecclestone’s ears meant he wasn’t just a pretty face. Heh. Bloody marvellous and triumphant return of The Doctor! And in (you guessed it) SURROUND-SOUND!

Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant (2005–I stopped watching): Cute but I finally got bored with the whole idea of watching it, because too much was going on in my own life. And it is a show for CHILDREN, after all.

Holy hell! Does everyone on LJ have a huge thorny stick up their arse! LOVE the whiny, “I’m gonna tell” guy. And the “you can’t tell me what do to” person. You need to write a post about these people. They are comedy gold!

One of them linked to it all on another website (on a Brits / American type message board). A moderator commented that she had looked at my blog and I needed “a punch in the face”. Hahaha! It isn’t just LJ.

I think it was Tom Baker who was The Doctor when I watched as a child. I didn’t understand half of what was going on, but I found it facinating anyway.
I agree about Christopher Eccleston. He just looks naughty!

“I didn’t understand half of what was going on, but found it facinating anyway”

Heck, I still feel the same way today. I hadn’t seen it in years, and stumbled across it recently on BBC America. I get a kick out of it, if I can just let my mind slip into that zone of just going with the flow and not thinking too hard about it…

This post is a bit recycled, so in fact I have watched David Tennant quite a lot (now). I think he is great and completely how I want the Doctor to be. You must see Tom Baker though, he IS the Doctor. :D

man I love me some Doctor Who. I was too little in the early 80s to watch it when we lived in England, but I caught in the states on PBS quite a bit. My favorite by far is David Tennant, just because he’s so sexy and he’s got that great accent and hair.

Not sure how I feel about this Matt Smith. I think I just don’t like Amy..his new assistant.

Well, I’m not really in a position to comment having only watched the Eccleston, Tennant and Smith eras (although I’ve seen bits of Baker and Pertwee), but I loved Amy Pond. She was the highlight of the series for me. She was prepared to stand up to the Doctor, to ignore his warnings/advice, and she had a brilliantly mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Perhaps due to timing (born in 1973) Tom Baker is forever the Doctor in my mind. I never got into the others afterward until the 2005 series which I *just* started watching on Netflix. I’d forgotten what a fun show it was.

I haven’t gotten to the David Tenant era yet though. I was sad to find Christopher Eccleston was only on for one season. He reminds me of Tom Baker quite a lot actually.